


Mordo Esseron

by Laerthel



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: FeanorianWeek, Gen, Of Naming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-04-04 19:15:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14026941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laerthel/pseuds/Laerthel
Summary: Of Feanoreans, and naming. [ My 2018 contribution to the event FeanorianWeek on Tumblr, in seven short instalments ].





	1. The First

**_A/N:_ ** _This is my contribution to the Feanorian Week in 2018, in seven instalments. Some of you readers might remember that ’Brontide’ – my 2017 publication – has never been completed with Fëanor’s piece; and Fëanor himself will be entirely missing from this year’s collection as well. The reason is very simple: I don’t feel confident – aka: skilled – enough to write anything about him. Yet._

**_About this year’s contribution:_ ** _’Mordo esseron’ means ’the shadow of names’ in Quenya, the ’shadow’ particle carrying a background meaning of befouled-ness. Consequently, one might guess that the small snippets I’m going to publish this week will all revolve around **names.**_

_While reading, you may also encounter certain titles I gave to the Sons of Fëanor in ’The Seven Gates’, or my other stories. I decided to include them as well because they add a lot to my personal understanding of these characters, which, I think, is what this event is all about._

**_Enjoy!_ **

* * *

**MORDO ESSERON**

**I.**

**Nelyafinwë**

The name fathers give is a promise, an expectation, and oftentimes a burden; the weightiest of all names, harder than steel and insistent like deep-embedded rocks in a hillside. No stream can smoothen it, no fretting legs, and no chisel; only grasp-less, ageless Time.

The eldest prince was promised to be third in a line of kingship, of valour, of lifelong service; for a king serves his people. And kingship, he gained; in vast and dark realms he ruled, and he was king of all thralls. Valour, he possessed, if only in vain. And he served for life, although at the end, he could not truly remember whom, or why.

 _Nelyafinwë_ was no name for a person; it was a title, and a line-number for the third Finwë in line, no more than a shadow of the previous two.

Faint, that shadow; and yet of a darker shade.

* * *

 

**Maitimo**

The name mothers give bears foreboding, and it can be frightening.

To be called _Well-Shaped One_ seemed particularly easy at the beginning, when it still was true. He would love that name, and he would laugh freely. For well-shaped he was; tall, strong, unusual hair, striking eyes, bright smile.

Later on, the name became a mockery of itself, and he came to hate the very sound of it. People would never forget it, though, and spill it on him from time to time like one spills water on a misbehaving hound; and he would grit his teeth and endure it.

* * *

 

**Russandol**

The name that is given by friends or loved ones is often light-hearted nonsense, for it is not innate with the Eldar to brood on the future, or declarations of doom. Thus, he was named after his hair, the only fix and truly determinable quality of a capricious young prince; a quality his cousin envied. Therefore, a quality to prey upon.

( _Russandol_ died with Findekáno, if not sooner).

* * *

 

**Maedhros**

Of all names, he found, the one he gave himself was the one that fitted him best. A name rooted in a tongue that was not his own; a name that sounded outlandish, alien; a name that was forged of many pieces and would not come together without breaking the tongue of those that came from the West. Within the name was _battle,_ and the name battled itself and its meaning as much as its owner battled the Enemy, the odds, and the fate of the world itself.

He knew not whether _Maedhros,_ in the form that he existed, had been a part of Illúvatar’s plan.

* * *

 

**The Warden of the East**

The people who loved him still – for some unfathomable reason – had oft given names to him, and there were a few that many remembered; thus, they became titles.

He earned this one when the Flames came, and the Siege of Angamando was abruptly broken; and alas! at times, he would remember faces and voices and the shrill songs of steel on steel. With remorse, he would ponder how much he’d prefer to see those faces around him still, rather than to be overtly praised.

Yet to ashes they have turned, and lo! their deaths have brought him yet another name, undeserved, uncalled-for.

* * *

 

**The Enemy of the Enemy**

Apparently, when half of one’s country is burned to ashes, comes a fine occasion for name-giving. The Bragollach would bring him another.

The conclusion took years to fully register in his mind, and almost a decade to be accepted, but he _liked_ the sound of it; for the Enemy and his Enemy were more alike than many would think, in the sense that they were both _Enemies_ – creatures of vice, hatred and ambition.

That much, at least, was true.

* * *

 

** Author’s Notes on Elven naming **

_Elves – traditionally – have four names:_

_Ataressë (or essi): given by their father at birth._

_Amilessë: given by their mother at birth but bestowed only years later._

_Epessë: a) given by a lover/ a close friend, is of a very informal nature or b) an honorific. Acquired later in life. [ Sources differ on the exact meaning or function of epessë; people very often mix it up with kilmessë, and a couple of sources, too ]._

_Kilmessë: the name one chooses for oneself, is of a very private nature._


	2. The Second

**_A/N:_ ** _Good luck with this text, honestly, because it’s not quite easy to grasp... I hope it still will be enjoyable, though!_

**_Also, thank you for your support and your appreciation! : )_ ** _I’ll try my best to answer everyone as soon as possible, on this story and on others; but this event being a bit, well, dense with the new prompts coming up day after day, I may be a bit late at times. For example today, when I have 5 assignments and a conference paper to finish._

* * *

 

**II.**

**Kanafinwë**

_’Finwë the strong-voiced’_ his father had called him; yet his music lacked drums and beats and harsh rhytms and pompous shifts of style; and little power did it hold for Fëanáro.

Yet _he_ was a maker, too, if not so loud, or not so eager. Father, it seemed, wanted to _possess,_ and rule, and his makings were all created to mirror his might, to express his thought, to fulfill – _exceed_ \- his expectations, to demonstrate his skill.

Fëanáro _did_ sing, occasionally, but he had ever been the loudest voice in the smithy’s choir, the anchor and the gist, the richest tone and the deepest note; and in a thousand different voices he sang, through his tools and steel and molten gold; and these were only there to grace his voice.

The second prince had a different muse, a more capricious one. (Something sublime, while uncanny; something feather-light and at the same time rock-heavy).

The muse would sometimes play with his hands, run lithely down the strings of his harp, then disappear in the puff of his catching breath. At other times, it would sit on his chest at night, a pressing, suffocating weight; and he would suffer, and no note, no instrument could bring him solace; for the song of the muse came from within, and was not made for earthly ears.

In either way, music would not be _ruled,_ nor _made,_ and he had never been an _artist;_ merely a recipient, a tool, an empty bail.

The wind blew through him, and for a time, it made sound.*

* * *

 

**Makalaurë**

Ammë did not name him _Cleaver of Gold_ because he was an evil thing.** She left that task for others, who called him many other things; but not evil, never evil (which he maybe _was_ , after all).

Little solace did that name bring him, for the cleaver was a craftsman, and a craftsman was something he was not.

(Not in the eyes of Atar, at least; and those days, Atar’s eyes encompassed the whole world, and maybe the Void beyond).

(All his hands could make was music, and rude gestures when he thought Atar would not see).

Yet the names mothers give are anchors, and stigmas, and with time, they come back; and for gold he would look in the decayed swamps of the Enemy’s lies, forgetting that (unlike many things) gold has two names.

* * *

 

**Maglor**

If the fourth Finwë ever had a strong voice, it died with the ships, the Trees, the shadows of regret, and the crown with pale jewels that was made of the finest, lightest silver, yet lay so heavily upon his brows. And he would take his second name and cut out what seemed superfluous or laden with poetry; for in music, it seemed, there was no more poetry than in gold-cleaving.

(In music, there was fury and distorted speech and contorted sounds; and all colours had a black taint).

* * *

 

**The Bard**

Many called him a bard, for that was what he seemed to be. A lean, silent figure, clad in black or blue, or black-and-blue, occasionally silver; faint colouring on an empty shell. His harp was golden, as if carved out of his own restless _fëa,_ of his past and his foggy future; and its sound was sweet, and sorrowful, for it sang of all the perils behind, and the ones that did not yet come to pass.

* * *

 

**The Landlord**

One day, he found that he had no more voice to shout and no more gold to cleave. A lord, he still was, somewhere under the layers of dirt and denial, and the land he was lord of still _existed;_ but Ulmo had claimed it with his tangly fingers and made it his dominion.

So he did the only thing he could do, the only thing he ever did in his life; he walked and sang, and walked and sang, and walked and sang, until the golden voice became rusty, the strings thinned and the words blurred into one irregularly pulsating beat, gradually devoured by the heightening tide on a horizon of fading.

* * *

 

**Author’s Notes**

* an allusion to Tom Stoppard’s ’Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead’ (one of my favourite plays), in an allegory of death: _“Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over. Death is (...) the absence of presence, nothing more - the endless time of never coming back; a gap you can't see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound...”_

** this part needs a little explanation: Elves discern the word for the _colour_ and the _material_ of gold. They consider that the material of gold has been besmirched by Morgoth, because he desired it and poured part of his malevolent power in it. Most etimologies refer to Maglor’s name as containing the word for the _colour_ of gold (therefore, the benevolent word), but I think this – at least in a dramatic and narrative sense – could be argued. _[ half a page of notes on semantics and articulatory phonetics have been aggressively cut out of here ]._


	3. The Third

**I would like to thank all of your for your reviews (once again), and please excuse me for my delayed publications & answers! They will come, probably on Sunday or Monday, at dawn. My assignments are (mostly) done, but now, for the first time this year, I’m going to spend the night out in the woods – and the woods are no place for laptops and Internet connection.**

**Take care, and please let me thank you once again for leaving feedback, the coin of fanfiction writers! : )**

**And now on to Celegorm.**

* * *

 

**III.**

**Turcafinwë**

He was the fifth Finwë in the line; tall, broad-shouldered, healthy, and strong.

(His Atar said so. If Atar said so, it must be true).

His strength, he would prove himself, even before he knew what _strength_ meant. No burden, no weight, no challenge was enough to appease the hunger of his tempestuous spirit; and out of Fëanáro’s Halls he wandered, out of magnificent Tirion he marched. The woods devoured him before he could write his own name before those large scribbly letters of his that looked like the scratches of lithe willow-fingers on the canvas of a river.

He would learn how to speak with birds and beasts, and how to wake the trees from their sleep and quietude; for before the power of Oromë and the might of Yavanna, there was no place for _strength_ , and no need to prove it.

From the Hunter, the third prince would learn many things; yet in his buoyant arrogance, he never learned what _power_ truly was, and if he had ever possessed it.

(True, Atar said so; but Atar had said many things).

* * *

 

**Tyelkormo**

Atar was a prince, a leader, a ruthless idol. A blacksmith, a many-faced phantom, and a mystery. The beginning and the end of all things; and the puppeteer who held the strings of the world in between. Within him, there was a fire that could give life; and that same fire blazed in the workings of his mind until the Ends of Arda.

Ammë knew that, that is why she named him _hasty,_ and a _riser,_ and a disturber of peace; back when the Trees stood still, the Valar walked among the Firstborn and Finwë ruled the Ñoldor from his rightful seat.

It was only evident – _so the third prince had thought for many years, at least_ – that Ammë must have sculpted him out of sheer, undeserving rock; and then Atar must have smoothened and chiselled him like he did with all works of his hands. Then, he must have clapped his hands and smiled, all eager, all pleased with himself as he would smile when one of his great oeuvres had been made and his long endeavours coming to close; and he would bring him to life.

Maybe that was how it happened indeed. Maybe that was who _he_ was.

* * *

 

**Celegorm**

Oromë, he had left behind, and many of his friends and friendships died in the embrace of blazing swans, harsh cries, and unacknowledged sins.

Ammë, he had left behind, and Haru had been killed. The doors of the World had turned out of their hinges, and the emptiness of the Void was gaping emptily beyond them.

Tirion, he had left behind, and the woods and freedom and the wind in his hair, the Light of the Trees, and maybe himself; yet the name Ammë gave him, _his name_ would stay with him for many years to come.

Not even once he had uttered the scarred, mutilated version of it in his entire life.

* * *

 

**The Fair**

Fair he was; or so some thought. Being fair, however, was not enough to be a good hunter. Being fair was not why Huan’s loyal heart turn towards, then against him. Being fair was no excuse for the wrongs he’d done, and no emphasis for the rights he’d made.

Being fair was close to being _nothing,_ for fëar are often written on faces; and _his_ fëa did not draw a single line upon his brows as years, decades and centuries tossed each other along Vairë’s tapestries.

Being fair was being many-faced, or faceless; for there were as many concepts of _fair_ as there were different creatures gazing at the stars.

Being fair meant nothing, after all; and the third prince knew that.

* * *

 

**The Wayward Prince**

Many songs and tales have been written about the disaster of the Flames; yet very few of those have been written down, for they were merely the balm of tired ears around makeshift campfires, with one eye fixed on the taleteller, and the other searching for enemies in the growing darkness. Such times were those.

Some of these tales speak of a rider and his horn; distant-sounding, yet clear, with a command in his voice, thunder in his heels, bright and wonderful in his fury as he storms through the woods and hunts for Orcs, dragons and other filthy beasts.

 _The Hunter has not forgotten us,_ the Fair People then say, and bow their heads, _such a vision he’d sent for our enemies to conquer their minds and fill them with icy fear._

_The Hunter remembers._


	4. The Fourth

**Morifinwë**

_“Finwë the Dark”,_ Atar had named him after he was born, looking at the mop of ebony hair surging on top of his head, so black that it could have been an extension of the Void; so black that looking at it, one could drown.

One could drown in the fourth prince’s eyes, too, for they were stormy grey with a centre that darkened and darkened until it was pitch black: windows to the inner workings of his mind, ever silent, every secret, ever painstakingly accurate.

Atar understood what it meant to be Dark. Atar _knew;_ for he mastered all deeds he’d done, and all works he’d made, and the fourth prince was one of his works, forged of questions and defiance; questions he maybe had, defiance he maybe felt, yet hid, or veiled with a second layer of negation.

Morifinwë _was_ Fëanáro when he lost his mind. Morifinwë _was_ what Fëanáro strove to be, if only the chains of leadership and diplomacy could fall off his wrists and ankles. Morifinwë _was_ a beacon to light Fëanáro’s hidden shifts of mood, the invisible frown of his features, his hidden displeasure in works smooth and perfect as he gritted his teeth and searched for another error that could be corrected.

Darkness hid errors and veiled endeavours, and mocked the eye, and sought a deeper understanding. Darkness, in itself, held no purpose and sought no victory, and those who tried to bend the Void to their will fell and shattered.

* * *

 

**Carnistir**

Ammë joined the choir of witty synecdoches by calling him Red-Faced: whatever that meant, however was that to be understood.

He used to dwell on that, for years – how one brother was called Well-shaped, the second a Cleaver of Gold, the third a Hasty Riser, and then there was he –

 _Red-Faced_.

Red, in itself, was a noble colour; it figured on Father’s sigil, it made paintings vivid and flowers rare, it made her mother stand out as an exceptional beauty among Elvenkind. It was also the colour of blood and suffering, before blood and suffering even existed among the fourth prince’s notions. Yet red, upon the face, was a bad sign – in any case, that of uncontrolled emotion, or _stirrings of_ _inappropriate behaviour,_ his father’s counsellor oft said, and raised his finger: often smudged with ink, yet never red.

He had tried to control it, sometimes; yet his blood was quick to rise, making Tyelkormo unworthy of his name, and it wrote ANGER upon his face with large scarlet letters.

His eyes stung.

Maybe Ammë was a witch, and this was a curse.

* * *

 

**Caranthir**

His face remained red for a long time after the ships had been burned, Father killed, the brother he’d idolised taken away, the brother he’d scorned sat upon an imaginary throne with an imaginary crown, because the crown had burned with Atar, burned to ashes, although silver, to his best knowledge, did not burn.

In the strange tongue of the Moriquendi, his name had an edge to it, and was deep and dark like the hole in his chest where the heart should be, and the echo of its beat. _Caranthir._ The name was like a sealed castle, the sort where wolves go to gnaw on bones. It also spoke of authority, somehow. And it also was _true,_ for his face was now more frequently made red by indignation, incompetence or the sort of sorrow that burns your insides and angers you instead of making you despair.

* * *

 

The fourth prince had sometimes considered to take another name, maybe a new one, maybe one that did not shallow his being down to shards of colours or shady symbols.

He had though about some possibilities, wasted a couple of minutes on this, then laughed.

He did not need a name.

His person did not need _elaboration._


	5. The Fifth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't forgotten these... :)

V.

Curufinwë did not have a name.

His name was Atar’s, as was his life. His composure. His voice.

The sharp line of his cheekbones.

The thread of midnight hair that stuck upon his forehead in the heat of the smithies.

The subtle change in his tone whenever he talked about a work of his.

The length of his steps.

The puffs of his breath upon the windows in winter.

The icy swoosh of his knife as it fell and sang the song of blood.

His laughter that echoed through many halls, and its source was not always evil.

His noble flag of red and gold that faded with time.

These were all parts of Atar as much as they were parts of him; and he did not know where to draw a line between himself and Atar. He did not know if there _was_ a line.

If Atar had intended him to be Curufinwë, then Curufinwë he would be, and nothing else. Life was a tapestry rolled out in front of him, and the course of his life was woven with red and gold. The path was clear and straight, and he would go. For many years, it had seemed like a blessing – to be _Atar,_ nothing less, nothing more (there was nothing _more,_ after all...).

It took time, time to see his luck for the curse it was, and when that time came, his name lost any meaning it might have had.

 _Curufinwë,_ he would murmur as he lay dying on some nameless Moriquend, _Atarinke. The Crafty._

_Do these mean anything now? Is there anything that means anything now? Even death?_

And so he would never know that Atarinke _did_ mean something after all. It meant Little-father, and indeed…

Maybe the second Curufinwë _was_ smaller than the first, and he could not see so far.

He could not see the forest, although he’d spent his entire life looking for it. He could have seen the tree, though, if he had not been so busy searching. He could have seen it very clearly.


	6. The Sixth

VI.

**Telufinwë**

Finwë the Last, they called him: a capricious name, a changing name, a name that had a false ring to it. How could he be the last, if there was another Finwë, one _very last_ Finwë, who came after him...?

(Had Atar intended for him to be the last? Had he intended to say that he was not the last in line, but last in valour, in wit, in talent...?)

If Telufinwë was older, he would have probably delved deeper into the meaning of it, stripping it to the core as he stripped sticks and bones. But no one spoke that name since the Ships, since the Darkness, since the day Maitimo had been trapped; Atar was the only one who’d ever spoken it, after all, and Atar was dead.

Maybe he stopped getting older that day. Maybe he merely continued existing, without the years leaving any mark inside or outside.

Maybe he was dead, too.

(Years – so many years, and he still didn’t know what _dead_ meant).

Maybe one who was dead went back into the rosy haze of days long gone, of Tree-light over the hills and rivers, of Formenos, of happiness, of being rich and comfortable without knowing what rich and comfortable even meant.

* * *

 

**Ambarussa**

No one spoke that name anymore, either, except maybe Maitimo when he was having one of his bad nights, and forgot what Age they were in.

The shared name sounded like home, like the chatter of rivers, like Mother. It rang clear, without any blemish of the Darkness – maybe that is why his brothers were afraid to use it. Or maybe they had just forgotten how to use sweet names, simple names, ones that spoke of nothing heavy and unpleasant, nothing hard and nothing deadly. Maybe they just assumed that names must have a pressing weight, and he, who had no such name, would no longer fit in the line of Finwës.

Maybe Atar was right (Atar was _always_ right, after all), and he was truly the _last_.

* * *

 

**Minyarussa**

He _did_ sometimes dwell on that name, strange as it seemed; on how his friends had called him the _first_ while Atar had called him the last.

The wish to think about that always came abruptly, out of nothing, at moments that held no significance. Like trapped between sword and whetstone; like bathing in the river; like flaying an animal; like singing a song to frogs and fireflies.

On his worst days, he would give meanings to that controversy – these were all dark, and they all pointed to death. _Death,_ whatever it was, seemed to lurk at the end of every road as well as its every bend, even for one who was chained to the world by the will of the Allfather.

On his best days, he simply accepted the name and appreciated it for what it truly was – the only way to discern one Ambarussa from another, for people who knew and loved them both.

Those days, he was able to glance at his brothers from a distance and see how complicated they became; how they veiled the sun from their own eyes.

* * *

 

**Amras**

There was a name he loved above all, although it was alien to his tongue: a name that was a refuge. A shortened version of Ambarussa; a faint reminiscent of what was, and what had ended for ever. Still, language held the power of keeping things, of revoking things; reversed and sometimes deformed, like a mirror, but always bearing a certain likeness to what one knew, or had known, to be real.

Whenever he heard the name spoken, he remembered. Although memories faded with time, and became perhaps too beautiful to be true, the name still held power - a different kind of power than names of great valour, or noble doom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short note on the twins [taken from the footnotes of The Seven Gates, Chapter 20]:
> 
> There are two versions of the canon we know: The (published) Silmarillion one, where Amrod is the elder and Amras the younger, and they both survive until the Third Kinslaying; and the Shibboleth one, in which the twins are reversed – Amras being the elder and Amrod the younger –, and Amrod perishes when the ships are burned in Losgar.  
> My interpretation is a mashup of the two, since Amrod is the younger, but they both survive the burning of ships.


	7. The Last

VII.

**Pityafinwë**

Some of his brothers’ names spoke of great deeds and curious dooms, as they were fated to be kings and lords and creatures of might. He had envied them – oh, he had envied them for so long, envied them for their names that held power. His own, as it seemed, held none.

Little-Finwë, Father had named him – and for many years he’d felt like the smallest of Finwës, the forgettable one, the _duplicate_. Oh, how many times had he been called Telvo by accident...! But he could not remember a time, not even _one single time,_ when the mistake had happened the other way around.

Maybe he was a ghost.

* * *

 

**Ambarussa**

The second name, he had to share, which meant that it was not even truly his. Telvo and him would hold lengthy discussions on whether the name belonged to both of them, or neither – sometimes it was the first assumption that seemed true, sometimes the second.

Maybe Ambarussa wasn’t a name at all, but merely an endearment...

...or not even that. Since who would have _dared_ to call Nelyafinwë Feanorion such a thing, even it it fit...?

* * *

 

**Atyarussa**

His third name was a means of enumeration, and again he was meant to be _second_ in that enumeration (not the first, never the first). When he was little, he’d loved it, since two was more than one – then, with age came the understanding that the second was less than the first.

It did not matter. He would get used to it.

* * *

 

**Umbarto**

One day, Father noticed the anomaly in his names; and he told Mother to give him another one – in which he secretly rejoiced, until the new name had been bestowed upon him, with its strange ring and unfathomable darkness.

The youngest son could not imagine what _fate_ was, or why it was dark. Such things were unknown to him, and no one proved willing to explain him what it was; until on the sixth day of his persistent asking, Grandfather sat him down on the rug of his parlour, held the sides of his face, and told him that fate was a cloak that you could not take down.

 _We all have that cloak about us,_ Finwë spoke softly, _but most of us can’t see it. By your name, you can._

* * *

 

**Ambarto**

One day, he told Father about the cloak that one could not take down; and Father laughed.

 _You are a son of kings,_ he said, _do as you please. Take down that cloak, burn it, throw it away – and I will give you another one. Turn away from the shadows, raise your head and see the Light!_

Thus, he was given another name, a new name – one mightier than Nelyafinwë’s. A cloak he could wear with pride.

A cloak that did not fit.

* * *

 

**Amrod**

He kept that cloak – Father’s last gift – for a long time, as long as he walked the blessed and cursed soil of Arda, hoping that he would grow into it.

Sometimes he thought it was still too large, sometimes he thought he’d outgrown it.

That did not change the fact that it never fit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this instalment, the challenge is over. Thank you for reading!


End file.
